Page 58 of Infatuated as They Come (Sinful Trilogy #2)

Sawyer

The Satellite Budget Motel was cheap, old, and run down, but for whatever reason, Holly seemed to like it.

There were a whole bunch of forms to fill out, so I had taken Holly and our bags back to the room while I dealt with them.

I leaned against the desk, scribbling down all my details as fast as I could, eager to get back to her.

“You nearly done with those forms?” the guy behind the desk asked, scratching a hand against his grey hair.

“Yeah, just need another minute,” I said.

I was down to the last question when my elbow bumped something on the desk.

A Christmas tree. A tiny one that had nothing on the one back in Holly’s home.

Last night put things into perspective. It was a wake-up call, a harsh slap across the face.

It felt like I was choking on air every second I sat in that cell, so how the hell had Holly been feeling this whole time?

Waking up with me gone, falling asleep on the couch waiting for me, dinners all on her own. She must have been so lonely…

She deserved better than to feel unloved. And yesterday all she had wanted was for us to do something special together. Nothing fancy, nothing extravagant. And there I went and dragged her to the damn country club thinking she’d love it.

Pen in hand, my eyes stayed focused on the little Christmas tree to my right. “After today, you’re not gonna need that thing, right?”

The man shook his head. “Guess not. ”

I shoved a hand into my pocket, taking my wallet out. “How much will you give it to me for?”

He snorted, brown eyes filled with amusement. “That?”

“Yeah, that. How much?”

“It’s trash.”

“My girlfriend kinda has a thing for trash. How much do you want for it?”

“I don’t know.” He poked at it. “I got it at the dollar store, so… forty bucks.”

“You got it from the dollar store, so forty bucks,” I repeated, swiping out a few notes from my wallet and resting them on the desk. “That makes sense.”

He picked the tree up, placing it in front of me before he slid the money his way. “You must really like her if you’re shilling out that much for a tiny little tree.”

“Yeah, I do really like her. I like her a lot.” I reached over the counter, snatching at his notebook.

“Hey, that’s mine! That wasn’t part of the deal.”

“I just want a piece of paper. I just gave you forty bucks for a five dollar tree, you can give me some paper.” I ripped off a blank page, ignoring all the annoyed sounds he was letting out as I got to work.

I didn’t even know what I was drawing, all I knew was that I didn’t want to go back into that room empty-handed, and Holly said she loved handmade stuff.

She loved the simple things. Our quiet nights in together, our days driving around town, just us hanging out at my place.

Those little drawings I used to make for her—the ones I hadn’t made in a while.

Pressing the pen to paper, I started making the soft lines of Holly’s long, thick hair, then her round face and her lips and nose, and then those eyes that were so fucking big and pretty, and I definitely wasn’t doing them justice as I drew her in the run down front office of an even more run down motel.

I wished I could have painted her instead and captured the warmth of her brown eyes, or how soft her lips were, or how her flawless golden skin always made it look like she was literally glowing .

Instead, I drew her lying down in a bed of flowers and I imagined them being bright and blue and yellow and red.

I imagined the sun beaming down on her. I imagined that I was there watching her, just looking at her, being with her, feeling her, taking her in.

It was what we used to have, what made me happy and what seemed to make her happy and fuck did I love making her happy.

I had been doing everything but making her happy over the last few months.

Then I tried to channel what little good penmanship I had, jotting down some words that I hoped would prove that I meant it when I said that I would change and be better.

Holly

I’m sorry I haven’t shown you how much I love you, but I promise you that I will from here on out, and this time, this promise will be one that I won’t break.

If there was a way to go back in time and fix all my mistakes, I’d do it in a heartbeat, but since I can’t, I just have to fix things between us, and I swear to you that I will.

I’m sorry for how lonely I made you feel. It hurts me to know that you were feeling that way, that you were sad, that you were waiting on me again and again. No more of that. No more lonely nights. You’re the best thing to ever happen to me and I need to start showing you that.

I want our days back. Where it was just us.

They were my favorite and they still are.

I’m sorry I let them slip away from us, but I will do everything to make sure I give them back to you.

Forever is what I want with you. Longer than that, actually, and I wish I could somehow stretch out time and get more of it with you, even if it was just for a little while.

Just one more day, hour, minute… Holly, I’d settle for one more extra second in the day if I meant I got to hold you in my arms. A second of looking into your eyes or hearing your laugh or seeing your smile.

That’d make me the happiest man in the world.

I love you and I will forever. Nothing will change that. No one will ever change that.

“Hey, that looks pretty good,” the guy said as I finished up, leaning over the desk. Then he picked up a photo frame and turned it towards me, showing me a very round, very orange cat. “Can you draw Benji? He turns eight in a couple days. My daughter will love it.”

I nodded. “Yeah, gimme some more paper.”

I did my best with Benji and then stepped over to the brochure display by my side, a sea of brightly colored pamphlets looking right back at me.

“Most of those places will be closed today,” he said.

“It’s okay. I just need something…” My eyes found the pinkest pamphlet there was. “Like that.”

I spread open the brochure and placed the drawing and letter of Holly inside before carefully wrapping it up.

Gift in one hand and tiny Christmas tree in the other, I made my way to our room.

When I got inside, I saw Holly fiddling with the TV, the picture all fuzzy and grainy as she shot me a smile over her shoulder, and I couldn’t fight back my own smile for the life of me.

“I can’t get a clear picture,” she said.

“I’ll fix that for us.”

“It’s the one where Daffy tries to kill Bugs Bunny so he can trade in the fur for cash.”

“I love that one.”

“Me too.” Her eyes lowered and then they widened when she saw what I was carrying. “You got us a tree!”

“It’s kinda small,” I said, placing it on the table right by the TV.

“No, I love it. Now I have somewhere to put all your gifts!”

I gave her gift a shake before putting it by the tree. “Yeah, me too. I made something for you at the front desk.”

“That’s for me?” she asked with a big smile. “Okay, you have to open yours now. Wait, I have to get them out. Wait—”

“Calm down.” I laughed, my hands on her waist. “We’ve got all day, princess.”

“I know, I’m just excited! Let me change into something more comfy first.”

I pulled at my tie. “Yeah, I’d like to get out of this suit, actually. ”

We both showered together and then Holly put on one of my T-shirts when we got out, and it felt impossible not to stare at her in it. Then she yanked out all the gifts she had gotten me. Big ones, small ones, some in between.

“You went slightly overboard,” I muttered.

“No, I didn’t. You can expect this every Christmas.” She looked up at me, batting her lashes my way. “And your birthday now that I finally know that. Come sit and open them.”

I had never had any of this before. The tree and the gifts and the perfect girl who just loved to give, give, and give some more. I joined Holly on the floor as she sat on her heels, her eyes twinkling as she picked up the closest gift to her and handed it to me.

“Merry Christmas,” she whispered, leaning forward to peck my lips.

I pulled off the bow and peeled back the paper, spotting a red and black flannel shirt.

My first thought was to flip over the price tag and my eyes widened when I saw how much it cost. Fucking four hundred bucks for a flannel shirt?

And there were about four or five more underneath, all different colors.

They probably all cost as much. Only Holly would spend that much on clothes.

Sometimes—for just a millisecond—I forgot how much money she had.

“You keep getting swindled, sweetheart,” I said.

She scooted in closer. “Do you like them?”

“I love them, Holly. Thank you.” I cupped the side of her face, stroking a thumb against her cheek. “Means a lot that you went out of your way.”

“Yay. Now you have to open another one.”

“No, you gotta open your one now.” I grabbed the hastily folded up brochure and held it out to her, her eyes lighting up.

She didn’t seem concerned in the slightest that I had used a damn pamphlet as wrapping paper.

She placed it on her lap, fingers moving slow and careful as she peeled it open to reveal the little drawing and letter.

She stared at the piece of paper for a long while before finally looking up at me, holding it close to her chest as her eyes turned all shiny. “I love you,” she said, leaping forward and throwing her arms around me .

She quite literally knocked me to the ground, her body pressed to mine as I hit the carpet.

She was peppering my face with little kisses, her lips soft and her body warm as my arms circled around her.

I held her close, pulling her into me, wanting all of her for as long as I could have her.

What had I been thinking not spending every single second I could with her?

“I love you too,” I said, her dark hair sprawled out everywhere. “Love you so much.”

“Ooh, we’re squishing it! I don’t wanna ruin it.

” She sat up and moved over to the edge of the coffee table, flattening the paper out with her hand.

“It’s so perfect, Sawyer. Thank you. Everything you give me is so thoughtful.

” She let out a long sigh. “I wish he could see that. I wish he got to see this side of you.”

“Hey, it’s okay.” Sitting up, I brought her back to me, hearing that shaky tone in her voice.

I just wanted today to be good. I didn’t want our first Christmas together to be one we thought back on and hated completely.

“We’re still here together, aren’t we? That’s all that matters.

I’ve got you and I always will. It’d be a lot easier if he just tried to understand how much I love you, but until then… let’s just enjoy today.”

Holly closed her eyes for a second before nodding. “Exactly. You’re right. Open another present!” She grabbed a little red bag and shoved it my way. “Here, this one.”

She looked so damn excited as she tapped her hands against her thighs.

I pushed a hand into the bag and felt around, frowning as I felt a bunch of hard bits of plastic.

They felt like cards. I pulled one out, seeing a shiny, gold ‘Art on 5 th’ embossed across the front.

It was a gift card. A gift card to one of the most expensive art supply stores in the city, one I had been in once and left in a second flat when I saw how much everything cost. Flipping the card over, my eyes narrowed when I saw five hundred dollars scrawled across the top.

But there were more cards in the bag. An endless amount.

Every single one I checked had the same amount written on it.

“Jesus Christ, how many did you get?” I asked.

“The most they let me put on a single card was five hundred dollars,” she said, “so I had to get a whole bunch. Very inconvenient, I know. ”

“How many is there?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Miss Money Bags over here, huh?” I asked. “Holly, you didn’t have to do this. This is a lot. This is too much. Thank you, but I can’t take all this.”

“You can, and you will, and you’ll enjoy all of it because you’re allowed to.”

“You spent so much on me and this is just the second gift. And all I gave you was some scrap paper.”

“No,” Holly said, picking up the paper and holding it to her chest again.

“You gave me something no one has ever given me before. You gave me something that’s special and priceless, something I’ll keep forever, something that came from you.

You always give me things I’ll remember forever.

That stuff’s so much more important to me than some dumb, expensive thing you can only buy in a designer store. ”

“All I wanna do is make you happy,” I said. “I guess this is the only way I know how. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like enough, but… But it is. I know that now.”

“The things you give me? I could only ever get them from you, and they mean so much to me because I know how much thought you put into them,” she said as her eyes softened.

“I like the little things. To me they’re not even little.

You know, my whole life I’ve had people just throw money at me.

Birthdays, Christmas. It’s always the same thing.

People just buy me stuff from Chanel or Cartier and think it’ll make me happy.

And they’re all lovely gifts and I appreciate every one of them, but it doesn’t really mean anything when it comes from someone who just throws their credit card at a luxury store because it sounded good.

I’ve never had anyone do what you do. Like making me those beautiful glass flowers from scratch, or making drawings of me, or saving up to buy me something really beautiful.

” She held a hand to her chest, fingers clawing at nothing but air.

I’d have to fix the necklace when we got home.

“It’s the first time I’ve ever had someone put so much thought and effort into me. I’m the luckiest girl in the world.”

“You’re sweet,” I said. “I’m glad you like all that stuff. I really like giving it to you. Makes me so happy when you’re happy. I wanna do that forever. ”

My hands found her waist and I held her against me, lips pressed to the top of her head as I squeezed at her.

That invisible bridge that had been growing felt like it was shrinking bit by bit.

I’d build and make anything she wanted from scratch if it meant her eyes would light up the way they were right now.

Blisters, cuts, burns, tired and aching hands. That was all worth it for her.